1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to label production apparatuses and label production methods.
2. Related Art
For example, well known are label production apparatuses that are configured to form images (label images) such as pictures, figures, symbols (characters), bar codes, and the like on a print target medium in which a mount, an adhesive layer, and a base material are laminated in sequence. Such a label production apparatus includes a printing unit for printing images on the base material and a post-process unit for cutting a portion of the base material and adhesive layer where the images are printed. After the cutting, an unnecessary portion, that is, a portion other than the image is separated from the mount (hereinafter, this separation is also called “unused portion removal” or “scrap removal”).
Such a label production apparatus is proposed that includes a test unit for testing label images printed on a medium and cuts out only non-defective label images from the medium so as to remove the defectively printed label images together with a unnecessary portion of the medium through the unused portion removal (for example, see JP-A-2010-149333).
It is to be noted that in a label production apparatus, a plurality of label images each of which has an image portion common to the plurality of label images (common image portion) and an image portion that differs depending on each of the plurality of label images (changeable image portion, hereinafter also referred to as “variable image portion”), are printed (variable printing) in some case.
To a position from which a defectively printed label image has been separated by the above-mentioned unused portion removal, an operator pastes a non-defective label image while adjusting the position of the label image to be pasted.
However, in the above label production apparatus, in the case where a print defect is detected, a label image having the print defect is not cut out and is separated together with the unused portion. This has raised a problem that it is difficult for the operator to recognize a position to which a non-defective label image should be pasted at the time of label image pasting.
Further, in the case of the variable printing, because the variable image portion is also removed at the time of unused portion removal, it is necessary to print a non-defective label image including a variable image again and paste the newly printed label image. Accordingly, this pasting work needs a considerable amount of time.